by Curt Kovener
Indiana has been ranked No. 1 for infrastructure in CNBC’s 2022 Top States for Business annual rankings. This marks the sixth consecutive year Indiana has been ranked in the top five, including No. 1 rankings in 2016 and 2019, according to a news release by INDOT—the Indiana Department of Transportation.
When we hear “infrastructure”—which entails roads & bridges, water and wastewater systems, electricity, natural gas, railroads, high speed broadband internet, and hiking & biking trails—most of us only think of roads & bridges.
The revelation that Indiana is #1 should come as no surprise to Jackson and Scott County residents. Just try to get anywhere on our roads.
At the US 31 & SR 56 stoplight in Scottsburg southbound motorists are met with a ‘Road Closed Ahead’ sign while westbound motorists—after passing a ‘Road Closed in Salem’ sign—have delaying lane restrictions before they leave the city limits. Head east out of Scottsburg and there are more ‘Road Closed’ signs indicating bridgework on SR 203 between SR 56 & 256.
Motorists heading west out of Austin are warned that State Road 39 is closed north of SR 256.
Getting out and around in Jackson County is equally challenging this summer. State Road 250 east of Uniontown is closed for work in Jennings County.
US 31 is one lane while the bridge over the Muscatatuck River between Uniontown and Seymour is resurfaced.
And for a while this summer, State Road 135 in Jackson County was closed or restricted in three different places at the same time.
Currently State Road 58 is closed for 30 days for a small bridge replacement. As soon as it is fixed two more locations on the state highway in Jackson and Lawrence County will close for similar work, each for 30 days.
There currently is a one lane restriction for bridgework on US 50 between Brownstown and Medora.
And there is scheduled work for a bridge replacement on State Road 258 just west of Seymour yet this year.
Then there is the seemingly perennial work on I-65. Which the communities of Uniontown, Crothersville, Austin & Scottsburg learn all too well when there is an accident in a construction zone and traffic is diverted onto US 31 through those communities.
And that is to say nothing about the detours for re-surfacing will be going on this summer in all of the communities which received state Community Crossing grants.
With all of the unofficial detours of locals finding their way through the maze of road & bridgework, it is putting additional traffic and wear & tear on county roads. Those will be the next to need resurfacing by always financially strapped county highway departments.
About 200 yards south of the lane to the Wilderness, the bridge has been out for replacement since April. And now the 8-mile county road run around locals use is getting beaten to pieces (literally) by tri-axle dump trucks and concrete mixers using it to get to and from the bridge work site.
But it will all be good…eventually. Good for residents, good for business, good for farmers, good for tourists, good for workers getting to their job, good for the law enforcement who will be busy ticketing speeding motorists on the now very smooth highways.
Ain’t it great that Indiana is #1…but many area Hoosier motorists have had a belly full of all this progress this summer.